Board of Aldermen 11-10-2020 Page 4
Now we have about 6 % people working on the contact tracing and 265 contacts is a lot of people to work with.
So you see on the Agenda, Madam President, R-20-092 which is the acceptance of a grant from the State of
New Hampshire. Once accepted, this will enable the City to take a number of steps with respect to COVID-19
but one of those things is to hire 4 more contact tracers so that we can have more like 10 people working with
these 263 contacts, a number which could rise, because the scientists tell us that December might be a heavier
month than November.
So as we discuss our problems or issues with COVID-19 this afternoon, Madam President, we talked about
asking the Board to act on this for a second reading under a suspension of the rules, R-20-092 so we can
accept the money right away so that Public Health can move forward and hire the 4 contact tracers and get
them to working to protecting the community as soon as we can. So | hope that the Board will consider acting
on that Resolution. Again, it’s merely the acceptance of State money; | hope you will consider acting on that
finally this evening.
Let me move on to the election, Madam President, which was, of course, held on the 3“. The election went
very smoothly, especially under the circumstances. | can’t say enough about City Clerk Sue Lovering and all of
the staff that she employed during the course of the two elections that we held: first the primary and then most
recently, November 3" the General Election. The number of absentee ballots cast was in the vicinity of 15,000,
many times what has ever been cast before. And the tracking procedure that the State established is very time
consuming. A number of entries have to be made over time for each individual ballot. And | have to say that
the City Clerk did a tremendous job in making the election come off as smoothly as | did. | saw her working 7
days a week for long periods of time making sure that all of the data got entered, making sure that every vote
was counted, making sure that every ballot was handled properly. And | just, again, can’t say enough about the
job that Sue Lovering and everyone else did in making sure that this election was as successful as it was.
And, of course, | congratulate all of the people who were successful in winning a week ago today, particularly
the five members of our Board of Aldermen who serve in the Legislature, all were reelected. | know all are up
there fighting for Nashua, so | want to congratulate you on your success.
Finally, Madam President, we have tomorrow — Veterans Day, which unfortunately we are not going to have the
Veterans Day parade. We have a Veterans Committee who oversees the parade and in view of the COVID-19
situation, decided that it was best not to proceed with the parade. And as we discussed this, you and | Madam
President, the need to recognize our Veterans and express our appreciation. We, of course, came across the
idea that we and the Board of Aldermen, the City have never formally recognized the Veterans on the Board of
Aldermen in the context of an Aldermanic Meeting. And there have been a lot of Aldermanic Meetings, and I’ve
never really seen that happen.
Now the Rotary Club earlier in the week had the Veterans from the Rotary Club, this was on Monday, tell a little
bit about their service experience. That seemed like a really good way for us to go and we, Madam President,
discussed this and thought that we would like to ask our Veterans, those being Alderman Dowd, Jette and
Cleaver, to take a few moments to tell us about their service and what they did. In a way of expressing our
appreciation and in a way of honoring all of our Veterans in Nashua, let’s hear the very interesting stories that
we can get right here in our own Chamber, of course, our virtual Chamber. | don’t know when, Madam
President, you would like them to tell us about this, now or later in the meeting, whatever you think is best. But |
would like to hear from them and, of course, thank them for their service as well as all of the Veterans. My
father was a Veteran, he fought in World War II, he was part of the 7" Army, the 70 Infantry Division. He
enlisted in 1942, was involved in training at various military bases, then went over to Europe, was sent over to
Europe in late 1944 where he fought in Northern France and Central Germany, they fought through to
Nuremberg against, of course, the German Nazis. And then once the war was over was involved in the
administration of the jail in Nuremberg where the Nazi war criminals were held while the Nuremberg trials were
going on. He left the service in 1946 as a Captain, came back to the United States and went back to civilian life.
So | just wanted to recognize him as well.
In any event, Madam President, those are my remarks. Again, thank you to our Veterans and if anybody has
any questions or comments, of course, I’d be glad to hear them.
